


Fish and Rice

by 8ball



Category: One Piece
Genre: I’m SO SOFT, M/M, soft zosan bullsht, we are all soft together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 17:17:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17145839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8ball/pseuds/8ball
Summary: Once, when they were still 19 and the world was still too large, they had sat together and shared their fears. They spoke openly, spoke like the children they weren’t really allowed to be, spoke softly in a cold night in the crows nest.





	Fish and Rice

**Author's Note:**

> This was heavily inspired by Migratory Animals by donutsandcoffee and red wine

 

 

 

 

Once, when they were still 19 and the world was still too large, they had sat together and shared their fears. They spoke openly, spoke like the children they weren’t really allowed to be, spoke softly in a cold night in the crows nest.

 

“Was it home for you? Will you always call it home and return there someday?”

 

Sanji thought about that. Zoro has told him of his village, skirted around the death of someone who had created the foundation of Roronoa Zoro. A quiet place where children slept next to fireflies.

 

“It was my first home. But it’s not my only home.”

 

It wasn’t quite an answer. It was the truth though.

Silent in their space on merry they let night turn into dawn and went on with their lives in the day. Gentle admittance to weakness tucked under victorious fights, two teenagers silently decided _we will protect each other._

 

-oOo-

 

Zoro didn’t seem to dislike any food, and Sanji wanted to like that about Zoro, but. He couldn’t.

Everyone in the crew disliked eating something. Even luffy wasn’t partial to vegetables, and Sanji had to work the greens _into_ the meat to make sure the captain got a balanced diet. Usopp liked spicy dishes but was opposed to _certain_ spicy dishes, and Nami disliked mayonnaise in all forms. So far Zoro has voiced nothing.

 

“Saying you’ll eat anything isn’t what I want to know. You’re allowed to have what you _like_ , you just have to tell me.”

 

Zoro would just look up at Sanji like he was asking him to solve a math problem. Or maybe Sanji was the math problem. Unsolvable equations either way.

 

“How am I supposed to know what I like and what I don’t if I haven’t ever tried it?”

 

And that- well that was fair. Sanji remembered that night in the crows nest, learning about a village the size of an ink drop compared to most places on the map. Fish and rice, simple vegetables, imported cheap fruit.

 

“Ok then.”

 

Fish and rice. He could make things out of fish and rice that Kings would beg for. He’d let Zoro taste fruits and vegetables that grew where humans couldn’t survive and where gods once freasted. He’d give it all to Zoro, let him find what his tastes were, all for Sanji to craft on a silver platter.

 

“I can work with that.”

 

-oOo-

 

Usopp was hurt and fighting with Luffy and Merry was dying. Sanji remembered this, _rage_ inside him, falling into sync with Zoro’s own. Finding these people who hurt Usopp _(one of them_ ) and who took the money to fix merry ( _one of them_ ), it drew out the hunger for blood that Sanji didn’t usually succumb to.

Zoro was the demon. Zoro was the warrior. He was going to be the worlds greatest, and at the end of the day Sanji was a chef who wanted his crew to be happy and full. Sanji wasn’t living for the thrill of killing, didn't find peace in the way bodies broke under his feet. He had no qualms with any of it, enjoyed a decent fight, but he-

There was this ugly thing crawling out of his soul and he wasn’t afraid, but it wasn’t him.

They got Usopp back, got Robin back and even an asshole with blue hair but merry still died. Broke apart under fire and sunk down, down, _down_ until merry wasn’t there anymore. None of the teenagers they were were there anymore.

Later when the crew was happy and full just like Sanji wanted, just like how he _needed_ it to be, he looked over at Zoro and remembered the feeling of forgetting everything else in the world and craving the pain of others.

He wanted to ask him if he also felt empty inside once that feeling left. Felt directionless and alone. But Sanji has his cooking to return to, and what did Zoro have to fend off those things?

Sanji served him a third helping and then a fourth, trying his best to fill that emptiness for him.  

 

-oOo-

 

On the island, the _stupid fucking pink island_ , Sanji remembered the crows nest on merry again.

He didn’t miss being that young and weak and naïve, but he remembered how easy it had once been to bare himself to another human, finding comfort in this other boy just as new to it all as he was. He remembered how they had gotten Chopper because they had almost lost Nami, had gotten Franky because they almost lost Robin. He remembers those moment with Zoro too, where they looked at each other and knew _we will get them back_. It frightens him to think about it being Zoro who they might lose before he realizes-

They had gotten _Sanji_ because they had almost lost Zoro.

 

-oOo-

 

It was fitting that they were alone in the crows nest again. But they were different men, and this was a different nest, so the words needed to be different too.

They didn’t talk about being alone, far from home. About feeling weak and being injured and maybe even scared. They talked about shit like the new benches in the galley and all the ways they knew Luffy was gonna fall in the aquarium. Sanji wondered if they were allowed to still talk about things like-weakness. Were they too old, with too much at stake? Had Zoro moved on without him, filling that bit inside him that needed to kill and kill and hurt while Sanji filled his own enormous need to feed the ones he loved?

It scared him. Deep in his mind and gut he feared the loneliness that would come from a life without Zoro by his side. He saw this monster, one eye and three swords and no heart, raging and killing and not remembering how to live. All of it, it scared him, this world where they couldn’t breathe in the same air and exhale the same words. The same thoughts.

Sanji left the crows nest and called himself all the names for coward. For what he didn’t quite know.

 

-oOo-

 

He was trying not to rub the cuffs on his wrists, trying to ignore them and the wedding altogether when he thought of 19 year old Zoro and Sanji sitting in that stupid crows nest again.

He didn’t know why he wanted Zoro there so much, but he was tired, and he was probably going to die, so his subconscious could fuck off for now and he could miss Zoro. He could also miss his crew because there was nothing like being surrounded by people you hate who faked being your family to make you miss your real family.

He made a mental list of the sacrifices that had led to new crewmates starting with himself. Zoro almost dies, Sanji joins. Nami almost dies, Chopper joins. Robin almost dies (Usopp almost leaves) and Franky joins. Zoro almost dies, again, and Brook joins. Judging by the pattern, he could guess that his death could lead to a potential new and interesting crew mate, and wouldn’t it just be convenient if new crew mate was a chef.

He rubbed his eyes, angry and sad and a little scared and wishing above all else that he was back in the crows nest with Zoro. Not the one on merry, but the one on Sunny, where they had both pretended nothing ever hurt, and they were both too strong for feelings.

He wanted to go back, tell Zoro the truth, make _Zoro_ tell the truth. Out of all the things he wanted and regretted, what he wanted now was to know Zoro’s weakness and Zoro knowing his. To let the humanity seep in and be ugly and pathetic. He wanted that with Zoro. But instead he was getting married and if god was kind (god was a bastard) maybe his death would be quick and dignified.

And because he didn’t have anything else to do other than regret and think and be sad, he wondered if Zoro would miss him.

He hoped he wouldn’t. (He hoped he would.)

 

-oOo-

 

Sanji was beginning to hate crows nests altogether. Zoro was always up there with his weights, making the place a mess of sweat and occasionally blood, and even if Zoro wasn’t up there it was still _his_ space. Sanji has the galley, Luffy had his special seat, and Zoro had the crows nest.

And that’s where Sanji is now, placing a warm dish on the bench seat while Zoro looks over and Sanji is struck, looking at the meal.

It’s fish and rice.

Of course it’s not _just_ fish and rice, but down to the core of the dish that’s what it is. He suddenly feels a bit like crying, because here he is with the god damn fish and rice, just trying to make something his nakama will like, praying that there is some comfort to be had from a dish to remind them of home.

Zoro had asked him if the restaurant had been home. If he would always call it home and return there someday. He wanted to tell Zoro the truth, that merry had been his home and sunny was his home and maybe there’d be another ship but as long as it was under this flag-as long as he was with his nakama. As long as Zoro was still by his side.

 

“I missed you.”

 

He can't quite believe he’s letting it out, feeling so fucking small and childish. But Zoro, he knows Sanj, _has known_ Sanji, and would this really be what severed the connection held tight by each hand? Two men that learn the layout of the world step by step, side by side.

 

“You know no one else can cook, right?”

 

Sanji’s head snapped up from the dish, searching and not really know what to look for in Zoro’s face.

 

“No one knew what to do. Luffy got poisoning eating a bad fish. It was stupid, and you shouldn’t have left.”

 

Sanji winced. He knew that, he _knew_ that.

 

“I’m glad you’re back.”

 

He turned away as he said the words, but not quick enough for Sanji to miss the blush spreading over his tanned skin. It made something small and warm in his heart giddy.

He ended up staying there, up in the crows nest of Sunny, making sure Zoro ate all his food and telling him about the wedding and the cuffs and big mom. Zoro touched his wrists, where the scabs were still healing, and told Sanji about Wano and sailing without their captain and eating bad food. He told him about training for two years, not quite sure if everyone was alive or not and feeling like the world was a very, very dark place. Sanji told him about an island made of rock where an old man saved a kid and they both starved to death but came back to life. He told Zoro about how he still had nightmares about a man who wore a mask and called himself a king, called himself a father.

Sanji woke up at dawn, not remembering ever falling asleep, with his head cushioned on Zoro’s shoulder and his large arm around his waist.

 

-oOo-

 

As hard as he tried, he couldn’t recall how they had merged their relationship into sex. He didn’t remember this quiet beginning of small kisses and then longer kisses and then clothes on the floor and Sanji’s heart in his mouth. But it seemed so natural for them, like they’d actually been fucking for years, like they’d been inside each other this whole time, clawing at skin and kissing shoulder blades.

 

“I love you.”

 

He says it to Sanji when they’re both bone tired from the day, clothes gone and they haven’t had sex yet but they _will_ because when had fatigue ever stopped them? Sanji doesn’t feel a single shred of surprise, and in the back of his mind he thinks _of course, of course._

But he says it back, just to make sure they’re saying the same words, and Zoro smiles and smiles and pressed that smile into Sanji’s skin. Writes it in his soul, tucks it in his heart. He kisses every inch of Sanji’s skin, learns that his cook will blush the most when he places kisses at his throat and his ankle. He always saves Sanji’s hands for last, touching each finger to his lips so gently that sometimes Sanji thinks he’ll break right there and turn into sea foam and stars. He’ll fuck into him so sweet and slow and drop prayers to his neck and Sanji can’t breathe, he can’t breathe.

He smokes his cigarette at 4am with Zoro wrapped around him and dead to the world. He remembered two boys sitting in a nest and he smiles.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas everyone I am So Soft


End file.
